


Paper-thin Heart

by murron



Series: No Place [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, prompt-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-14
Updated: 2010-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murron/pseuds/murron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Castiel lifted a soul from perdition, he learned two laws inherent to human nature. One: The body is not just a vessel; it's a gate for the soul. Two: Every soul freed remembers the way to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper-thin Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Up to 5x14  
> Standard Disclaimers Apply
> 
> a/n: Written for kijikun's Seasons prompt at LJ's comment_fic. Her prompt:
> 
>  
> 
> _I saw old Autumn in the misty morn   
> Stand shadowless like silence, listening   
> To Silence._  
> Thomas Hood, _Autumn_

The first time Castiel lifted a soul from perdition, he learned two laws inherent to human nature. One: The body is not just a vessel; it’s a gate for the soul. Two: Every soul freed remembers the way to hell.

 

* * *

 

It’s not a bright day; the clouds piling over the woods darken as the afternoon drags on. Castiel sits in the middle of a hayfield, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows. He likes the quiet, the moist smell of the mossy ground and the cool air on his face.

Dean lies beside him, his elbow barely touching Castiel’ leg. Every now and then, Castiel looks down at Dean’s still face, smiling at his tousled hair. His hand rests on Dean’s chest, fingers stretched over his heart.

It’s getting late. The waiting eats at him but he can’t afford to lose his concentration. His shoulders ache with tension and although Castiel pays little attention to pain, he knows it weakens him. A single drop of sweat runs down his back and Castiel exhales a long breath.__

The wind ripples the grass around him, gossamer stalks brushing his bare arms. He watches the broken fence at the far end of the field and the oaks beyond. Crows sit on the fence flexing their wings until a noise scares them off. As the birds take flight, Castiel’ gaze follows the man strolling along the fence until he reaches a gap. Hands in his pockets, he steps into the field, parting the grass with easy strides.

The closer he gets, the better Castiel can see the decay on his face, the hollow cheeks, the rash on his temples and the sallow skin. Lucifer’s still smiling, though.

“Castiel,” he says and Castiel has to lift his head to meet his eyes. “I’m surprised. I was sure Sam would be the one to call me for this.”

When Castiel doesn’t answer, Lucifer looks Dean over with open admiration. “Who killed him? One of mine, one of yours?”

“No one.”

“He killed himself? How noble.” Lucifer shakes his head. “Stupid, but noble. But then, that doesn’t come as a surprise with him, does it?” He frowns at Castiel’s hand on Dean’s chest before he looks at Castiel’s face with a raised brow. “Care to tell me what you’re doing?”

“I’m holding on to him.”

Lucifer’s smile widens, deepening the lines that bracket his mouth. “Sweet. I didn’t know you kids were close.” With a sigh, he crouches, clasping his hands between his knees. “So what’s the deal?” he asks. “You must have called me here for a reason.”

“Yes,” Castiel agrees. Up close, he can see Lucifer’s eyes are grey and dead except for a pale light expanding inward at their center.

Lucifer tilts his head. “Not to raise Dean, though.” Taking Castiel’s silence as affirmation, he continues, “You got me. I’m curious. Why did you call me?”

“To trap you.”

“Trap me?” Lucifer laughs, amused. He looks ready to continue but stops short, wrinkling his nose like he caught a sudden, foul smell.

_Smells a rat_, Dean would say.

_No_, Castiel thinks. More likely, Lucifer smells a ghost of brimstone and lakes covered in flame. He reaches out while Lucifer is distracted, closing his hand around the devil’s wrist. Castiel can feel both the bone under loose skin and Lucifer’s essence rippling in his vessel’s flesh. Cold shoots into Castiel’s arm, numbing his muscles up to his shoulder. He clenches his jaw, grips harder.

Lucifer flinches, his eyes widening. “What are you …” he begins but by then, it’s already too late.

Castiel has made the connection between Lucifer and Dean’s body, linking them together through his touch. Until this moment, he had blocked the open line between him and Dean from Lucifer’s view. Now he swings it open like a trapdoor and Lucifer sees both the emptiness inside Dean’s body and the way his soul prepared when it left. There’s a fissure in Dean’s heart and beyond waits a drop straight down to hell.

It’s then that Lucifer tries to jerk free but the arid wind that blows through the circles of hell has already reached him. It curls around him and starts to pull, dragging him from his vessel.

It is another law Castiel knows by heart. Purgatory waits for those who escaped.

When it happens, it is almost too simple: Hell reclaims its fugitives with the force of a maelstrom. Lucifer passes through Castiel, rending and clawing and flooding Castiel with a light so cold it burns. Jimmy’s skin scorches from the inside, his lungs seem to fill with ice-water and Castiel, tied too close to his vessel, gasps for air. Lucifer tears at Jimmy’s insides, makes a futile grab for Castiel before he’s yanked down through Dean’s body and into the void.

Castiel can feel him rushing deeper into the dark. For a second, he hears Lucifer’s outraged roar mingle with the cries of the despairing, then he’s gone.

Lucifer’s vessel keels over on his side, no more than the wasted shell of a human. Nick must have been dead a long time but there’s still a trace of sadness on his face and it makes Castiel feel for him.

Nick’s body blurring before his eyes, Castiel feels vertigo tug at his senses. As he sways, the ground comes closer and his hand slips on Dean’s shirt. At the last moment, Castiel snaps back, straitening up with a deep breath. He licks his parched lips, Jimmy’s heart beating hard inside his chest.

Lifting his face into the chill air, Castiel feels the sweat cool on his face and neck. Closing his eyes, he concentrates on the softly whispering grass and sinks his consciousness back into Dean’s body. Just beyond the limits of his flesh and bones, Dean’s soul hovers at the edge of the abyss and through the touch on his heart, Castiel holds on.

He can feel his resilience draining fast now, the slashes Lucifer’s passage left in Castiel’s vessel burning with pain. The touch of his hand on Dean’s chest is light but the force he uses to grip Dean’s soul tears at Castiel’s very being. Hell’s gravity pulls on the tendons of his vessel, too, and now that Jimmy’s body is bleeding inside, Castiel’s safe ground crumbles.

His shirt sticks to his soaked back and his left arm hangs useless by his side. Castiel detaches an inch further from his vessel, tightening his hold as Dean’s soul threatens to unravel at the edges.

He can’t pull Dean back. Right now, the effort of keeping him from falling eats up all Castiel’s strength. Hell’s just as hungry for Dean as it was for Lucifer, and it’s only because Castiel clings as hard to Dean as Dean clings to him that the abyss hasn’t won yet. With every breath, though, Dean is slipping.

Castiel’s losing ground just like they thought he might but he doesn’t let go. The roar of the wind is in his ears, but he won’t give.

 

_fin  
____________

14/02/10

Beta by **blue adagio** and **eretria**

  
_There is enough of sorrowing, and quite  
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,—  
Enough of chilly droppings for his bowl;  
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,  
To frame his cloudy prison for the soul!  
_Thomas Hood, _Autumn_

a/n: poem slightly adjusted :)


End file.
